Chris Core's Core Values

(St. Petersburg, Florida) I decided to cross another one off my “bucket list.”  I came to Florida for a couple of weeks of watching baseball spring training.

I’ve been to a spring training game or two over the years.  This time it’s different.  I’ll be traveling to five different venues with fellow baseball geeks to become fully immersed.

When I decided, months ago, to put this trip together, one of the first people I invited was my brother, Eric.  He turned me down.  “I’m just not that interested in pre-season,” he told me.  I tried to explain that this is baseball spring training, not pre-season.  There is a difference, whether he sees it or not.

Hockey and basketball play some games before their seasons begin.  Nobody makes a pilgrimage to see them.  The NFL’s training camps are happenings, but they’re held in the absolute dog days of summer, hardly a comfortable time to be seated for hours in the sun.

Baseball, however, begins its calendar year in Florida and Arizona.  In March.  The northern weather usually is still pretty crummy.  But here on the west coast of Florida, the temperatures are near 80 with a constantly refreshing breeze.

Besides delightful weather, spring training offers fans a chance to get up close and personal with their sports heroes.  Players are as loose as the spectators in March, willing to chat, sign autographs and pose for photos.

The towns that dot the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues make visitors feel like kings.  They’ve built gorgeous miniature stadia where fans sit very close to the field.  Signs of welcome abound.

Spring training is also a time of unflinching optimism. All of the teams are tied for first place.  Fans know this could be the year their team finally makes it to the Fall Classic.  Even Cubs fans.  I did not say the optimism was well-founded.

So, spring training is about baseball, but it’s so much more.  It’s about renewal. And in my case, some good old-fashioned male bonding.

The special magic of the great American pastime’s yearly awakening is a Core Value.

The city of Washington has a dilemma.  The government is due to take in $190 million more this fiscal year than they’ll spend.  The found money is burning a hole in the pockets of D.C. lawmakers.

Amazingly, this is on top of a previously announced surplus of $417 million.  All of that cash went into the emergency fund for future city needs.  Council members don’t want to bank this new windfall; they want to spend it.

David Catania (At-Large) wants to spend it on technology.  Yvette Alexander (Ward 7) wants to hire more lobbyists in the city’s fight for statehood.  Marion Barry (Ward 8) wants to pay for more low-income housing.

Here’s a novel idea:  Why not return the money to the people it came from?  You know, taxpayers.

I’m not sure why, but lawmakers often lose sight of the fact that the government’s money does not belong to them.  The money belongs to the folks who pay taxes to keep the government afloat.  Sometimes the amount taken in is less than what’s needed to operate a city or a state.  When that occurs, a government either raises taxes or makes spending cuts.  We’re having that debate on a national level right now.

Very seldom does a government turn a “profit.”  If that does happen, the prudent thing to do is put some of that money away for the inevitable rainy day.  After that, the only justifiable course of action is to return the excess to the people, not think up new ways to spend it.

Imagine the immediate economic impact to this area if every D.C. taxpayer were to get a rebate from the city.  Not only would it provide a stimulus to the local economy, but think of the good will it would engender with citizens who might otherwise have a jaundiced view of how the city is run  (though I can’t imagine why they would, I mean it’s not like any D.C. lawmakers have been under any suspicion for misuse of funds.  Oh, wait……).

Returning excess tax money to its rightful owners is the right thing to do and a Core Value.

Washington is a government town. That’s often an advantage. Because of the size and scope of the federal government, we live in a bubble. The D.C. area economy rarely goes into deep recession. That may change starting Friday.

Sequestration will hit here harder than anywhere else in the country. Many government employees will be furloughed, without pay, one day a week. That’s a twenty percent pay cut. Because employees won’t know which day they will be furloughed, it will be hard for them to find part-time jobs to help bridge the gap. Listeners tell me they’re afraid they could lose their homes.

What’s frustrating is, it doesn’t have to be this way.

The federal budget for this fiscal year is $3.7 trillion. The amount of mandatory spending reduction is $85 billion. Eighty-five billion is a lot of money, but it amounts to just 2.3 per cent of the budget. So, theoretically, if spending in all areas of the federal government were reduced 2.3 per cent we could arrive at the same savings without too much pain for any single individual.

Of course we can’t do that because so much of the budget is labeled “non-discretionary” — spending on things like Social Security, Medicare and federal pensions. These programs are called entitlements and can’t be touched, but ironically entitlements are mostly responsible for the ballooning deficit.

In other words, we can’t cure the problem because we can’t touch what’s causing it.

Here’s a better idea. Because it’s Congress that decided what’s discretionary and what isn’t, one would think Congress could re-classify its spending.

If a social security recipient had his thousand-dollar-a-month benefit temporarily reduced by 2.3 percent ($23), that wouldn’t be ideal, but it would sure be a lot fairer than making an active employee take a twenty percent pay cut as the current system will do. (Keep in mind, all these cuts will last only until a long-term Simpson-Bowles-like solution inevitably is reached).

The fact is our federal government spends too much money given given what we already pay in taxes. This has to stop. The sooner we rein in the spending the better. But until then, all of us sharing the pain equally is a Core Value.

Montgomery County, Maryland, is one of the richest suburbs in the Washington area.  It’s also, according to the now-coveted 18-34 year old demographic, one of the dullest.  The county’s executive wants to do something about that.

Ike Leggett says his county is missing out on a lot of potential revenue generated by night life.   Younger people tend to gather in hip places like the U Street corridor and Penn Quarter and even in Arlington’s Ballston and Clarendon areas rather than in MontCo.

Mr. Leggett says he wants to make his county more welcoming to the late-night crowd, so he’s going to form a task force on night-time economy.

Liquor is at the heart of the matter.  It’s no secret that Montgomery has some of the strictest regulations regarding booze of any jurisdiction not officially declared dry. Montgomery is the only county in the United States to run a monopoly on supplying alcohol.  All bars, restaurants and stores must purchase their alcoholic beverages from the county, which also owns all the liquor stores.

In addition, Montgomery strictly governs how late establishments are allowed to sell alcohol and mandates that half of the income generated in a booze-serving place must come from food.

Leggett’s task force will consider loosening alcohol and noise regulations to encourage a young, late night crowd to downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring.  (No offense, Gaithersburg, but apparently the executive feels the word “hip” will never be attached to your fine city.)

I live in Montgomery County and I think it’s just fine the way it is.  It’s family-friendly with lots of recreation that wraps up each day at a reasonable hour.  I think it would be a huge mistake to mess with success.

Allowing bars and clubs to stay open later and encouraging more sales of alcohol will lead in an inevitable direction: trouble.  Late-night booze-fueled revelry will require much more policing to make sure the streets are safe from fistfights, muggings, public urination and drunk drivers, all of which come with the territory.

Let D.C. continue to host the late-night crowd.  Keeping MontCo quiet and safe, if a little dull at night, is a Core Value.

Mark Tapscott is executive editor of this newspaper.  He’s also a very good writer.  His sly column in Friday’s Examiner still has me thinking.

Tapscott asks if President Lincoln would have used a drone to go after Robert E. Lee.  His column is a fictional conversation between Mr. Lincoln and War Secretary Edwin Stanton. He concludes that the President would have been very concerned about drones targeting American citizens for assassination, even Confederate leaders.

Last Thursday, I was hosting a show on Sirius-XM’s POTUS channel and we discussed drone warfare.  I was surprised by the number of listeners who called to express their displeasure with the use of drones against anybody.  It makes war too impersonal, they said, too much like a video game.  It’s too easy to go to war if you can avoid witnessing its horror.

One caller stood out.

Bob “pilots” drone aircraft.  That is to say, he steers the drones as they fly over Afghanistan.  He does this from Nevada.  He said once you get used to the trick of flying a plane 100 miles per hour with a two-second time delay on your view, it’s pretty easy to be precise.  Amazing.  And a little scary.

But getting back to Mark’s column, after having seen Steven Spielberg’s terrific movie “Lincoln,” I am pretty sure the sixteenth President would have used any tool at his disposal to win the war.  If the movie is correct, President Lincoln believed when it came to preserving the Union (and ending slavery) the end justified any means.

As for the “video game” aspect of drone warfare, there is something to that.  In the beginning of “Lincoln,” we witness the horrible slaughter of battle with the Confederate and Union soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand battle using bayonets, muskets and even their knuckles in a hard-to-watch scene.  That kind of war is hideously real.

For better or worse, drones are the future of battle abroad and intelligence gathering there and here at home.  They reflect on incredibly efficient technology.  But a national debate on how to use them responsibly and in concert with American values is also a Core Value.

Chris,

I wasn’t sure how to reply on your Core Values page but I wanted to respond to your most recent column, “SHHHHHHHHH!” As you know I’ve been reading your “Core Values” page for years, but this was another one that really touched a nerve and compelled me to write. My family and I go to the movies frequently, sometimes every weekend, and I also have been troubled by the conduct of some movie patrons. For me people talking during the movies isn’t the biggest problem now, (although it still does happen) but lately it is the use of phones during the show that is the biggest distraction. The theaters we go too, Regal Theaters mostly, have not one, not 2 but I think 5 different notices before the movie starts telling people to “silence your phones now”, not to “talk or text” during the movie and a few other variations on that message. There is no way someone watching the movie hasn’t see at least one of those notices.

But inevitably several people don’t get the message and will continue to check their phone during the movie. The phone isn’t ringing, and they aren’t talking or texting, but I can see them using their finger to scroll up and down or left and right and tapping on the brightly glowing screens. What in God’s name is so important that people can’t go for 2 hours without checking their facebook status or check a stock quote? With some of these smart phones, like the iPhone, the screens are big and bright so when I’m trying to focus on the screen I suddenly have this bright blueish glow shining through the otherwise dark theatre. So it is not a sound distraction, like talking or a phone ringing, but a visual distraction, as if someone turned on a flashlight a few seats over.

So while I haven’t had to “Shhhhhh” anyone recently (although I have in the past) 2 times over the last few months I have tapped people on the shoulder and told them “please turn that off it is distracting, thank you”.  There were more incident’s of “show glow” happening in recent months, but the people were too far away for me to do anything about it. But that is the unique aspect of this particular problem, a glowing screen even 8 or 10 rows away can still be very distracting if it is in your line of sight. Luckily for me anyway, the several people I have had to “remind” about not using their phone during the movie have all sheepishly and immediately complied with no angry repercussions.

I’d like to think that using your phone during a movie will become so obviously un-cool  that it will eventually be a common courtesy not to do it, but unfortunately we are not there yet.  I think the theaters are going to have to revise the pre show notices to not just say “silence” your phone, or just no “texting” during the movie, but to turn it off completely and not use it in any way during the movie. No talking or texting of course, but also no checking social media statuses, no tweets, no making your restaurant reservation or paying bills, no googling or any of the thousands of other things people can now do with their phones. Maybe it’s an age or generational thing as it just would never even occur to me to use my phone during a movie. Like you and you’re wife I assume, my wife and I are also very quiet and try not to disturb anyone in any way during a movie. (Although I do plead guilty to sometimes bringing in my own food to the theatre, but that’s another issue) If you had asked me 10 or 15 years ago if this would someday be a problem I would have thought you were crazy, but here we are.

As always, I enjoy your weekly column (Should I still call it a column when it is only on line?) Anyway, keep up the good work, you former one day co-host.

Brian

Roger Berliner represents my neighborhood on the Montgomery County Council.  I have never voted for him and likely never will.  His politics and mine simply do not align. However, every now and then he surprises me.  Take, for example, a statement he made last week.

First, some background. One year ago, Montgomery County started a bag tax at local retailers. Five cents for each bag you use. I opposed the tax when it went into effect and I don’t like it now.  Mr. Berliner was one of those who advocated for it.

Over the past year, I will confess I have used fewer plastic bags.  I admit that’s a good thing. Although I never remember to bring a cloth bag with me when I pop into CVS, I have found that most things I purchase can be put either in my coat pocket or carried by hand out to the car.

The bag tax applies to all merchants from the local mom and pop convenience stores to giant retailers like Wal-Mart.  The concept behind it was not to raise money for the county, or so its supporters said.  The idea was to change public behavior.  Shoppers should train themselves to carry reusable bags. However, it seems in affluent Montgomery, shoppers are more than willing to pony up the extra nickels.  The amount the bag tax is bringing in is soaring, the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen over the first year.

Mr. Berliner says he has been hearing from a number of his constituents how inconvenient and silly it is for the bag tax to apply to places that sell clothing, furniture and the like.  And to his credit, last week the councilman declared it may be time to tweak the Montgomery bag tax so that it applies only to places that sell food and drink.  After all, he reasoned, “who brings  their own reusable bags when they shop at Nordstrom?”

Bravo to Mr. Berliner for showing his mind is open to reason and compromise.  Good governance requires constant evaluation of how our laws impact our pocketbooks and our quality of life and is a Core Value

My wife and I went to see “Zero Dark Thirty” last weekend.  It’s the story of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.  The movie has been nominated for many awards and is quite intense.
 
Our experience in seeing it, however, was somewhat compromised by a lady and her companion sitting next to us.
 
First of all, despite all the rules, they brought in their own food, carefully wrapped in possibly the noisiest material known to man.  That was irritating enough, but when the movie began to get suspenseful, wrapper-woman decided to discuss it with her friend.  Out loud.  This greatly disturbed my wife.
 
A word about my wife:  she is normally a pleasant person who is easy to get along with and who avoids confrontation with strangers at all costs.  The only exception to this is at the movies where she feels for the twenty bucks we pay to get in, we should be entitled to a distraction-free experience.
 
As the woman next to her prattled on, my wife’s blood pressure began to rise.  Finally, she turned to the woman and said “Shhhhh.”
 
The woman looked irritated and said to her “Don’t you shhhh me.  Shut up.” By the way, she was a middle-aged woman, not some fresh-mouthed kid.
 
As the characters on the screen plotted their assault on Bin Laden’s compound, my wife stewed.  When the movie ended and the noisy neighbor rose to leave, my wife stood up and slugged her in the mouth.
 
Ok, that didn’t really happen.
 
What did happen was both the big-mouth and my wife avoided eye-contact in the still-dark theater and left by separate exits.

(Disclosure: I was not aware of the full extent of the confrontation until after we left the theater lest you think I should have risen to my wife’s defense.)
 
But, a word here to all who go to movies.  Please be quiet.  Turn off your cell phones and save your insightful analysis for after the film.
 
Going out to the movies is a great pastime.  Doing so with considerate theater-goers who respect those around them is a Core Value.

I was surprised to see lack of coverage and outrage about this.  DC officials continue to think they are above all others in how the conduct business and make decisions.

Jeff R.

Chris, your piece last week on the varying differences in local fuel taxes in DC, MD & VA and your muse of purchasing gasoline in VA because it is currently cheaper than MD (& DC) missed a key point.  That being that if the majority of residents that live near states with lower taxes crossed state lines and did as you expressed, state road budgets would be in even worse shape than they are right now.

I live in the eastern panhandle of WV and gasoline is indeed cheaper in nearby VA but I choose to purchase my fuel in WV because I want my local roads to continue to be well-maintained.  I grew up in the MD suburbs, lived in DC and currently work in northern VA and none of these compare to the terrific job that the WV state road crews does to keep our traffic moving especially on our state and local roads.  A perfect example being in the event of inclement weather like we had this morning—smooth sailing.

As you alluded to in your article, raising sale taxes on gasoline disproportionately affects everyone including those individuals that don’t drive (as I did not when I lived and worked in DC).  While no one likes to see taxes increase, drivers should be expected to bear at least their fair share of keeping our highways maintained and safe.  Raising the state/local (& federal) gas tax is long overdue and the most equitable way of keeping with the mantra, “if you use it, you have to pay for it.”

Richard C.
Kearneysville, WV